Stateside
Ch. 1 Gym Leader?
Dominic sat on the stone steps that the waves of Lake Pontchartrain* would crash into. He took a deep sigh; it wasn't exactly a secret that pokemon now existed and that gym leaders were being picked in each state. The United States had been separated into it's regions: North, South, Pacific, Mid-West and West. Not all states would have gyms but that still didn't prevent trainers from taking on the gym challenges with-in their own region. Nonetheless Louisiana was picked to be on of the South's gym states; only one person would be picked, so for Dominic, the chances were slim to none.
All of a sudden Dominic heard a strange noise coming from behind him, he turned around to see a Totodile happily walking by carefree as common description would have it. It stopped and turned to Dominic, it smiled and began to jump up and down happily and began to dance in a strange way.
"What a strange dance you have there Totodile. Though it's good to see you match up to your description." Dominic said smiling and patting the Totodile on its head.
"Hey you, let's battle!" an unfamiliar voice shouted from behind Dominic.
Dominic turned around to see a guy about his age with a Duskull at his side. Behind him was a young man who had looked like he was about to leave but with the spontaneous challenge, he stuck around in anticipation of a battle.
"Come on, let's battle! As the newly appointed gym leader, I want to show off my skills!" the boy shouted.
Dominic remained silent looking at his black haired, blue eyed challenger. "If you are the gym leader, aren't I supposed to be the one challenging you?" he asked.
"That doesn't matter! That is your pokemon right? Come on, let's battle!" he shouted once more.
Dominic looked down at Totodile, who in turn looked back at him. Dominic could see the fire in Totodile's eyes.
"You really want to battle this guy?" Dominic asked. He wasn't really sure how this would turn out, after all, this wasn't his Totodile, it was wild.
Totodile nodded excitedly jumping up and down.
Dominic turned back to his challenger and smirked, "Well, it looks like you have a battle."
The gym leader smirked and pointed forward, "Alright, Voodoo, use shadow ball!" he shouted.
Totodile did his strange dance as the shadow ball was being charged and when it shot forward at him, with incredible speed, Totodile dodged it.
"What attacks does he know, crap I don't know!" Dominic thought to himself. "Think, go with something simple yet obvious, wait, scratch won't work on a ghost type. What are my other options?"
Totodile was already dashing forward with great speed at Duskull and Dominic needed to come up with a command quick. By the time he opened his mouth to shout a command, Totodile had already attacked Duskull with his tail knocking it back and a burst of water pulsated from hit.
"How was that possible? Tail whip doesn't work on ghost types I thought. Wait, water came from that hit; could it possibly be... aqua tail?" he thought to himself.
"Voodoo, are you alright?" the gym leader asked. Duskull shook itself off and nodded ready to fight. "Great! Use hypnosis!" he commanded.
"Totodile watch out!" Dominic shouted but it was too late. Totodile fell asleep and stood motionless.
"Shadow ball Voodoo!" the boy shouted and a shadow ball hit Totodile, sending him flying into the water with a big splash.
Duskull floated over to where Totodile had fallen into the water to see if Totodile had been finished off.
Dominic got a gut feeling that crash landing into the water had woken Totodile up however there was no guarantee it had, but he had to do something.
"Totodile, use aqua tail!" Dominic shouted.
A whirlpool began to form underneath Duskull and it eventually rose from the water and a vortex of water engulfed Duskull with Totodile riding around in it's current slamming his tail on Duskull. When the attack stopped, Duskull had fainted.
"What? That's impossible, how could I lose? I'm the gym leader!" the boy shouted.
"That's enough Nick, you lost fair and square." The man said walking up to the victor of the battle.
"What's your name son?" he asked extending his hand.
"Dominic." he replied shaking the man's hand.
"Your Totodile put up an impressive fight." the man complimented.
"Yeah, about that, it's not mine. It just walked up to be some time before the battle." he replied modestly.
"What?" Nick shouted.
The man laughed loudly, "That's incredible! To think you were able to command a wild pokemon so well and win a gym battle. I think I was wrong in my choice, how would you like to be Louisiana's gym leader."
"Gym... Leader?" Dominic replied.
"Yes." the man replied.
"I don't know what to say... sure!" he said sealing the deal with a handshake.
"Pfft, whatever, it's not like I would have been gym leader for long anyway, I'm moving to North Carolina next week anyway." Nick pouted walking away.
"Oh, I'm sorry, how rude of me. I'm Director Stan, I'm one of the United States Pokemon League coordinators." he said.
"Nice to meet you Director Stan." Dominic replied.
"This is splendid." he said "The South now has all the gym leaders. However there is a slight problem."
"What is that?" Dominic asked.
"Your pokemon, you need one." he replied.
"Oh, that's a valid point there Director." Dominic agreed.
Director Stan reached into his bag and pulled out a pokeball, "Here, use this to capture Totodile. It seems to like you a lot and I'm sure will be willing to be your partner."
"Um, sure." Dominic replied tossing the pokeball at Totodile. Totodile hopped up and happily jumped into the pokeball willingly being caught. "Sweet!" he shouted.
"I need to brief you on what you need to do. You have a year to get your party assembled and then comes the Elite Four Tournament. Train hard, I will be looking forward to seeing you there and your badges will arrive soon." The Director said walking off.
*Lake Pontchartrain is located in Louisiana; the the big lake you see on the United States map.
